Using the most recent figures given by the 2007 Hipparcos data, the star is 301.17 light years away from us. Distance

HD 160508's Alternative Names

HIP86394 is the reference name for the star in the Hipparcos Star Catalogue. The Id of the star in the Henry Draper catalogue is HD160508.

BD number is the number that the star was filed under in the Durchmusterung or Bonner Durchmusterung, a star catalogue that was put together by the Bonn Observatory between 1859 to 1903. The star's BD Number is BD+26 3054.

More details on objects' alternative names can be found at Star Names .

Location of HD 160508

The location of the main sequence star in the night sky is determined by the Right Ascension (R.A.) and Declination (Dec.), these are equivalent to the Longitude and Latitude on the Earth. The Right Ascension is how far expressed in time (hh:mm:ss) the star is along the celestial equator. If the R.A. is positive then its eastwards. The Declination is how far north or south the object is compared to the celestial equator and is expressed in degrees. For HD 160508, the location is 17h 39m 12.67 and +26° 45` 27.7 .

Radial Velocity and Proper Motion of HD 160508

Proper Motion

All stars like planets orbit round a central spot, in the case of planets, its the central star such as the Sun. In the case of a star, its the galactic centre. The constellations that we see today will be different than they were 50,000 years ago or 50,000 years from now. Proper Motion details the movements of these stars and are measured in milliarcseconds. The star is moving -66.19 ± 0.64 milliarcseconds/year towards the north and 34.21 ± 0.79 milliarcseconds/year east if we saw them in the horizon.

Radial Velocity

The Radial Velocity, that is the speed at which the star is moving away/towards the Sun is 23.10 km/s with an error of about 0.40 km/s . When the value is negative then the star and the Sun are getting closer to one another, likewise, a positive number means that two stars are moving away. Its nothing to fear as the stars are so far apart, they won't collide in our life-time, if ever.

HD 160508 Luminosity

Luminosity is the amount of energy that a star pumps out and its relative to the amount that our star, the Sun gives out. The figure of 4.35 that I have given is based on the value in the Simbad Hipparcos Extended Catalogue at the University of Strasbourg from 2012.

HD 160508 Colour and Temperature

HD 160508 has a spectral type of F8V. This means the star is a yellow to white main sequence star. The star has a B-V Colour Index of 0.54 which means the star's temperature is about 6,122 Kelvin. The temperature was calculated using information from Morgans @ Uni.edu at being .

HD 160508 Radius

Radius has been calculated as being 1.88 times bigger than the Sun. The Sun's radius is 695,800km, therefore the star's radius is an estimated 1,310,900.01.km. If you need the diameter of the star, you just need to multiple the radius by 2. However with the 2007 release of updated Hipparcos files, the radius is now calculated at being round 1.83. The figure is derived at by using the formula from SDSS and has been known to produce widely incorrect figures. The star's solar mass is 1.25 times that of the Sun's. The Sun's Mass is 1,989,100,000,000,000,000,000 billion kg. which to calculate using this website is too large. To give idea of size, the Sun is 99.86% the mass of the solar system.

The star's metallicity is 0.010000, this value is the fractional amount of the star that is not Hydrogen (X) or Helium (Y). An older star would have a high metallicity whereas a new star would have a lower one.

The stars age according to Hipparcos data files put the star at an age of about 4.80 Billion years old but could be between 3.30 and 5.40 Billion years old. In comparison, the Sun's age is about 4.6 Billion Years Old.

HD 160508 Apparent and Absolute Magnitudes

HD 160508 has an apparent magnitude of 8.11 which is how bright we see the star from Earth. Apparent Magnitude is also known as Visual Magnitude. If you used the 1997 Parallax value, you would get an absolute magnitude of 3.22 If you used the 2007 Parallax value, you would get an absolute magnitude of 3.28. Magnitude, whether it be apparent/visual or absolute magnitude is measured by a number, the smaller the number, the brighter the Star is. Our own Sun is the brightest star and therefore has the lowest of all magnitudes, -26.74. A faint star will have a high number.

Distance to HD 160508

Using the original Hipparcos data that was released in 1997, the parallax to the star was given as 10.53 which gave the calculated distance to HD 160508 as 309.75 light years away from Earth or 94.97 parsecs. If you want that in miles, it is 207,723,500,833.

In 2007, Hipparcos data was revised with a new parallax of 10.83 which put HD 160508 at a distance of 301.17 light years or 92.34 parsecs. It should not be taken as though the star is moving closer or further away from us. It is purely that the distance was recalculated.

Using the 2007 distance, the star is roughly 19,046,359.49 Astronomical Units from the Earth/Sun give or take a few. An Astronomical Unit is the distance between Earth and the Sun. The number of A.U. is the number of times that the star is from the Earth compared to the Sun.

The star's Galacto-Centric Distance is 7,349.00 Parsecs or 23,969.74 Light Years. The Galacto-Centric Distance is the distance from the star to the Centre of the Galaxy which is Sagittarius A*.

Travel Time to HD 160508

The time it will take to travel to this star is dependent on how fast you are going. U.G. has done some calculations as to how long it will take going at differing speeds. A note about the calculations, when I'm talking about years, I'm talking non-leap years only (365 days).

The New Horizons space probe is the fastest probe that we've sent into space at the time of writing. Its primary mission was to visit Pluto which at the time of launch (2006), Pluto was still a planet.

Description

Speed (m.p.h.)

Time (years)

Walking

4

50,492,402,538.98

Car

120

1,683,080,084.63

Airbus A380

736

274,415,231.19

Speed of Sound (Mach 1)

767.269

263,231,813.30

Concorde (Mach 2)

1,534.54

131,615,735.11

New Horizons Probe

33,000

6,120,291.22

Speed of Light

670,616,629.00

301.17

Source of Information

The source of the information if it has a Hip I.D. is from Simbad, the Hipparcos data library based at the University at Strasbourg, France. Hipparcos was a E.S.A. satellite operation launched in 1989 for four years. The items in red are values that I've calculated so they could well be wrong. Information regarding Metallicity and/or Mass is from the E.U. Exoplanets. The information was obtained as of 12th Feb 2017.

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